Sunday, January 20, 2013

Scarlet

Scarlet by AC Gaughen

An amazon summary to give it one leg to stand on, and then I plan on knocking it down, "Many readers know the tale of Robin Hood, but they will be swept away by this new version full of action, secrets, and romance. Posing as one of Robin Hood’s thieves to avoid the wrath of the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only the Hood and his band know the truth: the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. Helping the people of Nottingham outwit the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham could cost Scarlet her life as Gisbourne closes in. It’s only her fierce loyalty to Robin—whose quick smiles and sharp temper have the rare power to unsettle her—that keeps Scarlet going and makes this fight worth dying for." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE...This is my impression of the main character Will Scarlet. "MY NAME'S SCARLET, I'M A GIRL, I'M IN ROBIN HOOD'S BAND, WE LIKE STEAL STUFF, I'LL NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT BEING A THIEF AND HOW IT BLACKENS MY SOUL, A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW I'M A GIRL (WINK WINK), AND THE STORY REVOLVES AROUND MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"So Will Scarlet is the main character of the book, she's a horribly bad narrator who can't get to the main point and changes her mind about things quicker than I could turn the page. This whole story is clearly about someone who fell in love with Robin Hood, wanted to be Robin Hood's lover, wanted a love triangle (BECAUSE THAT'S ORIGINAL; HELLO TWILIGHT? HUNGER GAMES?), and wanted to make it seem like the girl in question was on equal footing with Robin Hood. So they decided to write themselves into Robin Hood's story as 'Will Scarlet' and REALLY tried to make them fascinating but failed miserable at it.

Like this, except not a comic book hero that apparently can control squirrels. Marvel is crazy.

Also, from the way Will Scarlet is described about moving around in the trees and doing all sorts of acrobatics, half the time I was convinced she was a human sized squirrel. She kind of acted like a squirrel to, always trying to hoard items....PHOTO.Moving on.So the entire book is basically Scarlet going on one adventure after another to try and save the land from the evil sheriff who over taxes them and tries to find crimes where none exist. Whenever an adventure is about to happen, the men of the band get all up in arms like, "SCARLET'S A LADY, SHE SHOULDN'T GO ALONE, I'LL PROTECT HER EVEN THOUGH SHE'S TOTALLY KILLED MEN BEFORE, HURK TESTOSTERONE".She also appears to have a dark past of some sort which she reflects on constantly but doesn't give any details about until she ABSOLUTELY HAS TO. UH. BECAUSE SHE'S EMO LIKE THAT.

..Let's just go to spoiler land so we can rip the bandaid off and everyone can share my 280+ pages of pain.

TO SPOILER LAND.

So Scarlet is part of Robin Hood's band which consists of Robin Hood, John Little, and Much. Scarlet spends the entire book being like STOP TREATING ME LIKE IMMA LADY, I'M SO TOUGH *GETS HURT ALL THE TIME*.

John Little starts to be all, HEY I THINK SCARLET'S A LADY... I LIKE LADIES, HEY SCARLET LET'S MAKE OUT.

John Little BUT I LIKE HER TOO, WE SHOULD BE GRUMPY AT EACH OTHER ABOUT IT. I CAN FLIRT WITH HER OBVIOUSLY BUT YOU GOT TO DO IT ALL SECRETIVE LIKE.

Robin Hood KAY

Scarlet IMMA SQUIRREL

...like that's the book.

There's some parts where Scarlet's all WOE IS ME, I'M SAVING PEOPLE BY STEALING THINGS, WAH MY ETERNAL SOUL *kills another dude* OH NOOOO but it's not important.

There's a lot of bad things that happen to the civilians, but it's really downplayed and more used as fuel to get Scarlet to go all up in arms, put herself in danger, and the men to help her out or rescue her. Then they all praise her for her bravery.

My last piece on this is Scarlet is revealed to have some convoluted back story where she's actually a lady of something and she ran away from the bad guy that was her fiance. That bad guy came to town to kill Robin Hood and his band as he was hired by the sheriff and Scarlet is all upset about it but you don't get to know why until like it's too late to care. She's just all upset and stupid about it. She's really close to having the 'Too dumb to live' syndrome.